Advertisement

Undocumented people in the U.S are fearful of Trump's new deportation rules

Detainees await their turn at the Fourth Avenue jail in Phoenix, Arizona, this February 22, 2017. In the past two weeks hundreds of undocumented migrants have been the target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. EFE / Thomas Hawthorne / POOL

Undocumented people in the U.S are fearful of Trump's new deportation rules

Trump's advice to illegal migrants: “Keep your head down as much as you can”

President Donald Trump anti-immigration rhetoric is already taking a high toll: fear.

Over 11 millions of illegal migrants across the country, mostly Mexican and from other Latin American countries, fear every day to be detained and deported to their home countries.

Spanish newspaper El País talked to some of them in California, like José Eduardo Paz, a Mexican national, and Raúl García, a Honduran. Both have lived for more than a decade in Los Angeles without residency or work permits, and have children born in the U.S.

“With Obama, you had to do something wrong. Now they can deport you for whatever reason,” Paz added. In the past, Paz used to travel regularly to Miami to visit his brother, but now he doesn't dare to take a plane, fearing the agents will detain him when he shows his passport.

Saúl Cabello, an immigration legal adviser working in Los Angeles, says that after reading the presidential memorandum it is clear that anybody without papers who is picked up by the police will no longer be released on parole pending a hearing. “People are going to be arrested and deported,” he said to El País, adding: “Be more careful than ever before. Keep your head down as much as you can.”